President Donald Trump recently ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take “immediate steps” to stop the closure of coal and nuclear power plants.

And according to a draft memo that surfaced the same day, the federal government may establish a “Strategic Electric Generation Reserve” to purchase electricity from coal and nuclear plants for two years.

Both proposals, which have garnered little support, are premised on these power plants being essential to national security. If implemented, the government would be activating emergency powers rarely tapped before for any purpose.

But are experts worried about any electricity shortages or outages between now and 2025? Well, no. Other alternatives, mainly natural gas, wind and solar energy are poised to keep filling the gaps created in recent years by other coal plant closures.

Disregarding the findings of its own study, the agency proceeded to ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent federal agency known as FERC that regulates energy rates and policies, for permission to subsidize coal and nuclear plants. The agency unanimously rejected that proposal.

More recently, PJM Interconnection – the nation’s biggest grid operator – declared that its power supply is not in jeopardy and that there is no reason to take this anticipated policy move.

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The North American Reliability Corporation, the federal entity responsible for power reliability, has reached similar conclusions.

Unprecedented intrusion

In short, there is no emergency that justifies this unprecedented intrusion into the electricity markets that would warrant forcing taxpayers and utilities to pay a premium to keep coal and nuclear plants online.

How America’s power markets work

The nation’s regional power markets operate much like an auction to cover the constantly changing, hour-by-hour demand for electricity from consumers large and small. Procedures vary in different parts of the country, but typically electricity producers “bid” into the market based on what it costs them to operate. The rules generally require regional grid operators to dispatch the lowest-cost power available.

Companies selling power generated in natural gas-fired power plants have managed to lower their costs considerably in recent years because of low natural gas prices, a result of increased drilling from the spread of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

In many cases, the power generated by coal andnuclear power plants sells at prices that are too low to cover operating costs. The federal government does not typically intervene in wholesale electricity markets, other than to enforce rules intended to ensure that the competition is fair.

Because it would override the results of competition, I have no doubt that the Trump administration’s proposals would mark a radical intervention by the government into the electricity markets.

Winners and losers

Shareholders of the energy companies that own money-losing coal and nuclear plants stand to gain if this policy gets implemented because they are unable to compete in the wholesale power markets without this kind of assist.

Other power companies, utilities, taxpayers and electric ratepayers – meaning homeowners, businesses and anyone else who pays to keep the lights on – would lose out. We’d all have to pay a premium to pay for this unprecedented form of government intervention.

What’s more, there’s no clear legal rationale for this kind of policy. Like most scholars of law and energy, I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t usher in a wave of lawsuits filed by the oil, natural gas and renewable energy industries, utilities and even irked homeowners.